Past noon, conservancy worker Annamalai has pulled up his battery-operated vehicle parallel to garbage bins at a garbage transfer point in Kalakshetra Colony near S2 Cinemas. He is emptying the contents of the smaller bins in the vehicle into the lager ones on the road.
Occasionally, Annamalai take the sleeve of his shirt to his brow to wipe the sweat off it. He has been on the field since 7 a.m. and has himself hydrated. The conservancy worker with Urbaser Sumeet looks forward to the buttermilk given at the end of the shift - a small but important gesture by the waste management company to help its workers beat the scorching heat.
Last month, Chennai Traffic Police resumed its annual practice of providing buttermilk and pith hats to its personnels on the ground.
Recently, the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine released an advisory to prepare for the season. It also instructed health officers to report heat-related illness on an integrated health information platform — National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health portal.
Advocate M. Vetri Selvan of Poovulagin Nanbargal says the State Government must instruct departments to work with a sense of urgency. The environment organisation has presented a list of demands in the context of fighting heatwave-related climate change.
To top that list is a move to draw up guidelines for a heat action plan. It reads: “The Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission has submitted a report to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin regarding heat mitigation measures to be implemented by government departments. This report should be published immediately for public viewing, with comments to be considered and actions implemented.”
A heat action plan aims to increase preparedness and lower the adverse impacts of extreme heat by outlining strategies and measures to prepare and recover from heatwaves.
Vetri Selvan says heat advisory has been issued for the last three years but it does not talk about specific guidelines for every department to work on.
“We need to understand heatwaves fuelled by climate change. That understanding is currently lacking even among health care professionals,” says Vetri Selvan.
Heat-related data
Having guidelines in place would also push departments to record information on health related illness. “We need field-level data on heatwave, including deaths and hospitalisations,” he says.
The representation also made a case for gig workers. Vetri Selvan says currently neither the Factories Act nor the Labour Department is responsible for the safety of gig workers.
“We have welfare schemes for gig workers in Tamil Nadu but that only covers accidents,” he says.
Need to appoint “heat officers” at the district level to carry out heat mitigation activities and encouraging private and public companies to adjust working hours based on heat levels are among other recommendations.
A case study on Chennai Metro Rail workers
How do Metro Rail workers manage heat while working in the “caverns” of the earth?
In 2018 two faculty from the Department of Physiology, Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute in Puducherry, presented the findings of a study on heat stress during hyperbaric intervention on tunnel boring machine (TBM) in Chennai Metro Rail construction.
TBMs are engaged for the construction of tunnels. Published in the Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine the study (titled ‘Evaluation of Heat Stress in Construction Site of Metro Rail in Chennai’) found reduced working hours and food supplements played an important role in the execution of the work without any untoward incident.
After a thoroughgoing medical examination, 188 miners worked under increased atmospheric pressure for more than 45,000 man hours on this particular underground stretch. Most of the time, work was carried out in the temperature range of 34–45° C. On a few occasions, the heat coming out of the excavation chamber was so intense that miners could not enter the chamber to record the temperature and the work was abandoned, says the study. Temperature above 50°C was recorded on 20 occasions. “Five hundred kilogram of ice in 25 kg blocks was placed inside the excavation chamber to reduce the temperature,” it says.
The report says that the main motivation to work is the “pressure allowance” given to the workers for every hour spent under pressure. Once decompression was over, miners had to be given a very light job till the end of the usual 12-hour shift or were simply allowed to go home, the report adds.
Among recommendations made by the authors of the study, Dr. Krishnan Srinivasan and Dr. A.C. Kulkarni, are: ensure compressed air passes through a chiller unit to increase human comfort inside the main locks and to reduce the working time of the miners in case chilled air cannot be supplied.
What they say:
Mahmood Sait, CEO, Urbaser Sumeet
In 2021, we had one case reported of a conservancy staff collapsing after work during the peak summer. Since then we have not had any cases reported from our ground staff. This time, if the temperature goes beyond 45 degree, we will definitely be speaking to Greater Chennai Corporation to give them a break of one hour from noon to 1 p.m. They can compensate that hour later.
We have asked our supervisors to check into the well-being of our staff. We shave a helpline that can be availed by our staff and residents. Besides water provided at all our 126 mustering points, butter milk and caps are also being given.
R. Sudhakar, Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic
The number of traffic booths in the city has increased. Many of them replace the shelters that don’t offer much protection against the heat. During summers, we ask our team to be on the road only during peak morning and evening hours. The remaining time they can operate from the sides — booth/shelter.
Traffic police personnel generally work staggered hours. The rule in traffic is that it’s a four hour shift because after that one will not be able to stand. At present we are getting some request from staff asking for eight hours but that is because they stay far.
A data of heat related illness of our workforce is something we can start recording.
